[jan-jaap]

An update to my attempts to rewire my computer room.

To recap: I've got some ~ 25 systems, and I want them to be usable, which means they need to be wired. As in: power, serial and ethernet. Several systems have either FDDI or FC or both so I need a good amount of fiber as well. The scale of this setup means I have a lot of "supporting" equipment (ethernet switches, FC switches, console server, etc etc), which in turn means I have a 19" rack to house all of that. Finally, I'm not cutting corners by hiding little (?) ethernet switches behind systems -- <I>everything</I> terminates at the 19" rack. I realized in 2012 already (when I had this annex constructed) that the cable trunks would be the size of my forearm, so I decided I wanted cable gutters under the floor in order to keep things tidy.

I have since put in ethernet and serial cable in. Now it's time for the fibers. To give you an idea about the scale of this job, this is my supply of fibers and most of them will be used. I need 14 FDDI and 18 FC connections, but since all fibers terminate at a patch panel, I need 64 lengths of fiber. Y'all know the size of an Indigo2

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NB: I see there's still a limit of 1 inlined photo per post, so I'll format this 'tweet blog' style, by replying to myself. Also, the flash of my Nikon kept reverting to manual operation so some of these photos are a little dark. Hope you don't mind.

[jan-jaap]

<B>part 2</B>

Like I said, everything terminates to a patch panel behind the 19" rack. Bottom two positions are for RJ45 (ethernet + serial), some 65 of the 96 total port are in use. The Belkin "SC" fiber panel is for FDDI, with 14 of 16 ports in use. Finally, the top panel is for FC, with 18 of 24 ports in use.

Here the fiber cable trunk (FDDI + FC) direction my workstations is wired, but the other half (mostly a lot of FC direction my desk, where the Tezro, Onyx2 and Octane2 live), not yet.

[jan-jaap]

<B>part 3</B>

Cables going direction my workstations and desksides. Maybe you can imagine why I want that stuff out of sight. The RJ45 cable and fibers leaving the cable gutter on the left hand side will go to my 4D/380 VGX "Predator" rack and my Origin 200. You can spot MIC and SC style FDDI connectors.

[jan-jaap]

<B>part 4</B>

Other side of the room, behind the book cupboard, you can see the same cable trunks heading for the corner with the workstations and desksides.

[jan-jaap]

<B>part 5</B>

Finally, now that the cables are in, I can put the floor panels back on. I intend to bundle the cables going to each system and cut the RJ 45 cables better to size, and/or hide excess cable in the gutter, so this will clean up but you can see where it's going.
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I need to fabricate some sort of lid on top of the patch bracket or it will become one big dust trap. Also, I need to wire everything from the patch bracket to the switches etc in the 19" rack. I haven't made up my mind between bundling everything in a single big "umbilical cord" or separate bundles for ethernet, serial and fiber yet. We'll see what works in the real world. Keeping it tidy is going to be a challenge as well.

[computron]

woaw

clean

Cheers

Eve

[jpstewart]

I can't figure out how you have the patience to do all that work so neatly. I always start out with good intentions, but my energy and interest levels rapidly drop before a quarter of the work gets done. I get frustrated, leave a half-finished mess, and run new cabling in whatever manner is quickest. You do not want to see the mess lurking behind my work space ... and I've got only a fraction of the gear you have.

It's very impressive work!

[Jacques]

Very impressive work, very clean and professional looking.

[ghost180sx]

The images here have somehow stopped working. Any way you can edit your posts to bring them back? I'm curious!

[jan-jaap]

The images here have somehow stopped working. Any way you can edit your posts to bring them back? I'm curious!

I'll have a look, I should still have them. Meanwhile, I have wired the ethernet switches and the Cyclades serial port server. This concludes copper wire installation, except for some RJ45-something-else adapters for serial console access:



Yesterday I started with the wiring from the patch panel to the FDDI concentrator and the FC switch. Here's what 14 FDDI fibers look like:



The fiber patch panel has SC port for FDDI, but my concentrator (Cisco WS-C1400) has one card with MIC connectors, and one with SC connectors. FDDI is normally a dual ring topology, my "ring" is the smallest possible: from the ethernet-FDDI router to the concentrator. It's just about impossible to find SC-MIC fibers for halfway reasonable prices.

After this I have 18 FC fibers left to do.